Excalidraw

Excalidraw is an open-source virtual whiteboard for sketching ideas. Its drawings have a deliberately hand-drawn look, which keeps attention on the idea rather than on pixel-perfect polish, and that has made it a favourite for architecture diagrams, flowcharts, quick wireframes and explanations in technical blog posts.

The project was started by Christopher Chedeau, the engineer known for co-creating React Native and Prettier, and released on 1 January 2020. The free editor at excalidraw.com remains open source under the MIT licence, while Excalidraw+ is a paid subscription with cloud storage and team features.

Key features

• Infinite canvas and simple tools. Rectangles, diamonds, ellipses, arrows with binding and labels, lines, free drawing, text and images on an unlimited canvas, with dark mode and keyboard shortcuts.
• No sign-up. Anyone can start drawing at excalidraw.com without an account; work autosaves to the browser and the app works offline as a progressive web app.
• Real-time collaboration. Share a link to draw together live, with end-to-end encryption, or share a read-only link.
• Libraries. Public shape libraries supply ready-made sketches that can be added to any drawing.
• Open format and export. Export to PNG and SVG or save the editable .excalidraw JSON file.
• Generative AI. Text to diagram, wireframe to code and Mermaid to Excalidraw conversion, with a daily allowance of AI requests.
• For developers. The editor is an npm package for embedding in React apps, there is a VS Code extension and a CLI, and Excalidraw+ offers a REST API and an MCP server in public beta so agents can draw into a workspace.

Who it is for

Excalidraw suits developers and architects explaining systems, product teams sketching flows in meetings, teachers and students, and writers who want friendly diagrams for articles. The free editor covers individuals and occasional collaboration; Excalidraw+ is aimed at teams that want drawings saved in the cloud, organised into collections and shared with controlled access.

Pricing at a glance

• Free: free forever, with the full editor, one infinite scene stored in the browser, unlimited collaborators, export to PNG and SVG, libraries and 10 AI requests a day.
• Excalidraw+: USD 6 per user per month paid yearly, or USD 7 per user per month paid monthly. Adds unlimited cloud-saved scenes and folders, workspaces and user management, comments, voice hangouts and screen sharing, live presentations with PDF and PPTX export, and 100 AI requests a day. A 14-day free trial is available.

Excalidraw states that all prices are in US dollars. Prices as checked on 10 October 2026; confirm on the vendor's pricing page.

Things to consider

• The hand-drawn style is a deliberate choice; teams that need polished, precise diagrams or full interface design may prefer a dedicated design tool.
• On the free editor, drawings live in the browser unless you save the file, so clearing site data can lose work.
• Excalidraw+ accepts credit card payment only, according to its pricing FAQ.
• The REST API and MCP server are labelled public beta.

Getting started

1. Open excalidraw.com and start drawing; no account is needed.
2. Browse the shape libraries and add a set that fits your work.
3. Click Share to start a live collaboration session with a colleague.
4. Try Excalidraw+ free for 14 days from the pricing page if your team needs saved, shared scenes.